538 FLIGHT NOVEMBER 13TH, 1947
the factors involved in making use of cyclic and collec-
tive pitch control from glide approaches, and in so
doing he gives chapter and verse, as it were, from the
designer's point of view for the manoeuvres which Lt.
Hosegood described.
The article deserves careful study by all who are
interested in the helicopter. The concluding instal-
ment, which will be published next week, gives Mr.
Fitzwilliams's ideas on the greater ease with which future
helicopters with heavier blades should be capable of
being landed without engine.
Jets and CarriersT
HE welcome news, reported in this issue, that the
Supermarine Attacker has successfully made its
first deck-landing trials brings to mind the whole
subject of high-performance aircraft in their relation
to aircraft carriers. Designers are being set more and
more difficult problems, and hitherto they appear to
have succeeded rather well. But the question does arise
how much longer must the harassed aircraft designer go
on shouldering the whole burden?
In the main, aircraft carriers have not altered funda-
mentally since quite early days. True, they have added
assisted take-off devices to their equipment, and the
modern arrester mechanism is a little more of an engi-
neering job than were the ropes and sandbags which
littered the decks when Sopwith Pup biplanes with rotary
engines of 80 h.p. or so, and weighing less than a Tiger
Moth, were first tried. But it does seem that the next
step should be up to the designer of the carrier rather
than the designer of the aircraft.
The Navy will have to make up its mind whether
it will sacrifice performance in the much more advanced
aircraft types of the future, due to the need to design
them for the carrier, or whether the policy will not,
CONTENTS
Outlook
Meteors in Mala/a ....
Attacker Lands-on ....
Here and There
American Newsletter - ...
Engine-off Landings ....
America's Jets .....
Meeting in Italy -
Landing Gear Developments
Civil Aviation News - - - -
Casual Commentary -
Inflatable Exposure Suit
Correspondence - - -. .»".-'
Service Aviation - - - - -
Forthcoming Events, page 540.
537
539
541
543
544
546
549
553
554
557
560
561
562
563
from now on, have to be more in the direction of en-
tirely new ideas in carrier design.
During the full-day debate on naval aircraft design,
held by the Royal Aeronautical Society earlier this year,
Mr. W. S. Farren made some interesting and significant
suggestions on this subject. He pointed out, it may
be recalled, that no one had yet made full use of the
enormous power supply available in carriers, and that
this should be capable of projecting aircraft into the
air at a much higher rate than any combination of the
aircraft's own power plant and catapults and rockets.
He made the further point that, the carrier was the only
kind of airfield on which it seemed practicable to transfer
the shock-absorbing mechanism from the aircraft to the
deck.
It is to be hoped that these suggestions have been duly
pondered by the Admiralty.
HERCULEAN EFFORT : The 25-miUion-dollar Hughes Hercules
flying boat, the price and progress of which have been the subject
of a Congressional investigation, is seen prior to taxying tests on
November 2nd, during which it became airborne (see page 559).
Roughly half as large again as the Saunders-Roe S.R.4S, this wooden
prototype has been under construction since March, 1943. The
eight engines are Pratt and Whitney Wasp Majors.